So what started out as the subject of jokes has now become something much more sinister.

The horse meat scandal is far more extensive than we all thought. Some of the meat found in cheap burgers and value ready meals may even contain Bute – a drug linked to cancer if taken in very high doses.

But what’s really been exposed is the almighty dominance of ­supermarkets and their relentless obsession to drive down the cost of goods.

Their rise went unchecked but they responded to our needs. ­Supermarkets claimed to offer a wider variety of choice, economies of scale and could stack ’em high and sell ’em low.

In the short term that was good for the economy and your wallet. Cheaper food meant lower inflation and more money to save or spend elsewhere.

But they’ve decimated our High Streets, forcing tens of thousands of small shops to close. To protect their positions, they bought ­hundreds of small shops to extend their presence on to the very High Streets they were strangling.

I tried to stop them by changing the planning laws to stop them building out of town hypermarkets, bleeding trade from the High Street. But they moved into the cities, buying acres of land to ­prevent competitors opening against them and then launching their own smaller shops.

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The former boss of Tesco Sir Terry Leahy described the closure of independent shops as “part of progress” and our High Streets as “medieval”. Now 98 per cent of the UK’s £150billion grocery industry is controlled by just nine stores.

They stripped out the butcher, the baker and the publican – the very sinews of our communities. All ruthlessly filleted to drive up ­market share and return for city investors. Last year, Tesco’s pre-tax profit was £1.7billion. And they forced our farmers to sell their meat, milk and eggs for less and less and signed them up to ­longer contracts. This is called “price tyranny”. So why the hell didn’t supermarkets spend a fraction of their billions in profit to test their ­products?

The fact is supermarket price tyranny has played a huge part in a race to the bottom to provide cheaper meat. Last April the EU banned desinewed beef and lamb?– mince ­produced by mechanically rubbing the fleshy remains off the bones – from being called meat. This was the staple of value meals, cheap burgers and kebab meat.

So suppliers looked for cheaper European alternatives – no questions asked. They and the supermarkets took a gamble – and are now paying the price.

Supermarkets should be forced to regularly audit their supply chain and test products to ensure what you see is what you get.

But if you really want to eat healthily and be certain, get back to your local butchers.

Supermarkets have become the Del Boys of retailers – and we’ve all been fooled by horses!